City of Angels

He didn't speak a word.

His ragged breath just slowed.

Then stopped.

What did he see

as gazed up at the sky?

The gray Los Angeles haze?

Or an angel's welcoming arms.

As his heart tried to beat

just a few more times,

already fading in defeat

by the gangbanger's knife,

was he thinking about

the revolution or his

toddling son?

Then he was gone.

I saw the life pass

from his eyes

and felt the warmth

and wetness where

I knelt in his blood.

Already in the moment

that I rose wobbly to my feet,

it grew cold and sticky

on my hands and jeans.

The Party had a martyr

but the angels know the truth.

Goodbye, Treasure Island

Another day, another void,

another structure gone.

the mound replaced

by the pit.

And i'll be gone

before the toads

resume their songs

from the toxic pond.

No more Christmas trees

or turkey feasts,

all the children's toys

and games abandoned,

the children left last year.

The thousand pounds

of books i'll keep

are piling high

in neatly sorted boxes.

I’ll surround myself

in my new home

with walls of words

on paper. I can see it.

I found an empty

snail inside a snail.

The husk of the island

hollows out each day.

Like a hermit crab

my own new shell

will fit me better.

A hermit’s home no more.